A Passing Into Still Night
by j.y.l
Summary: Padmé Amidala Naberrie reminisces one last time... A/A from EP I - III


Title: A Passing Into Still Night  
  
Author: Star182 Email: fallenstar85@hotmail.com  
  
Disclaimer: Please don't sue Mr. Lucas! I have no money…and you already have lots…  
  
Author's note: Please go easy on me; this is my first Star Wars fanfic. I kinda wrote it hurriedly so please excuse me if it doesn't make any sense, or if I have forgotten to correct any spelling or grammatical errors. I hope you like it – constructive reviews are greatly appreciated.  
  
  
  
  
  
A Passing Into Still Night:  
  
A story in the style of vignettes and recollections  
  
  
  
A figure sat in silence, motionless, in the large bath. The figure belonged to that of a girl-woman; a girl who found herself entangled in a life that was advanced for her age, a woman's life, but a woman who was very much a girl in the inside. Especially when it came to matters of the heart.  
  
For how long she had sat in the bath she didn't know. The only indications she had was the water, once steaming warm, that was now cool, and the tell tale prune like markings evident on her digits. She didn't know that the time to have gotten out had long past.  
  
Outside the lone sun of her planet began to sink into the horizon. As it dropped from the heavens it was leaving a lingering orange-pink blanket, the last remnant, soon to be gone as well, of a once bright day. It was truly a sight to behold. One could even say it was a reflection of the life of that same girl-woman.  
  
But of all these things the girl-woman did not take any notice or care. She continued to sit quietly in her bath, nude and unaware that she was shivering. Her lower lip trembled. Trembled, from the cold?  
  
Slowly, ever so slowly and tentatively, she reached out with a single prune marked finger and broke the water's surface with just a touch. And, with unseeing brown eyes, she watched as the disturbance, which started off small and insignificant, grew.  
  
………….  
  
1 Back…back to the time when the girl-woman was just simply a girl…  
  
………….  
  
She blinked once, twice.  
  
Once, from the shock and once again for her sudden amusement.  
  
The boy that stood before her momentarily stared in shy, childish admiration.  
  
'Are you an angel?' He had asked. She didn't answer.  
  
'They come from the Moons of Iego, I think,' the little boy continued, going about his business while she stood in wonder at the thought.  
  
1.1  
  
1.2 'They're so beautiful that they even make space pirates cry…'  
  
And that is how she had first met him, as a girl-queen. Yes, she was a queen. As a young girl she was found to be highly intelligent and displayed admirable leadership skills. Separated from her family, raised and educated to become a politician and later, a ruler. But she was still but a girl.  
  
And he, just a boy - a slave boy. A simple boy. But even then she could perceive something different about him that suggested that he wasn't.  
  
The boy was of a charming appearance. He had a sort of shaggy, ear length mop of dirty blonde hair with a peppering of lighter streaks, and his eyes sparkled in boyish mischief a light azure blue. The boy had a short, compact stature that peaked only just above her elbow.  
  
But despite his ordinary little brotherly like appearance, he was not so ordinary. Those about him noticed his natural charisma, his intelligence and quick wit. He was the only boy, the only humanoid in fact, to display such sharp senses and reactions needed in the breakneck, heart-stopping speed of podraces. Even the Jedi became aware of the boy's wonders, mystified at the strength of the Force about him, and there were whispers that he showed potential of becoming a most powerful Jedi though his future was uncertain and clouded.  
  
They had rescued the boy from slavery on his home planet, a barren wasteland, while on a mission. To them it had been chance that they had discovered this boy in a time of desperation and despair for her planet. The power hungry bastards of the Trade Federation were besieging the girl- queen's planet and she was helpless to stop it, being young and still slightly naïve and inexperienced. But their discovery of the mysteriously talented boy had been proven to be fate, fortunate fate, when he had saved them all, somehow managing to destroy the control center of the Trade Federation ship blockading the planet and preventing all-out war that would have resulted in the death of her people.  
  
For that she was eternally grateful.  
  
Still, even with his extraordinary talents and his rescue of her people, there was something about the boy that endeared him to the girl-queen. He harbored a deep and flattering adoration for her, and to him, she was his only friend. She was the only one there for him, holding him when he had cried as he felt his heart break at having left his mother behind when he was rescued. She had embraced him, to try to wash away the frightened look in his eyes as tears quietly slipped down his cheeks.  
  
She remembered how she had smiled, in sincerity and only slight amusement, as he had once, in quiet confidence, announced that he would someday marry her.  
  
'But you're just a boy,' she reminded him, unsure of whether he was aware of the many things that rendered that situation in her mind as impossible – their age difference, and the fact that she was a queen, and he was a former slave boy that was to become a Jedi padawan learner.  
  
To her it seemed he was still immature and naïve, to have put forward such an amusing notion. But he had surprised her yet again, leaving her in wonder, with his whispered reply.  
  
'But I won't always be.'  
  
………….  
  
  
  
A faint smile lifted the corners of the girl-woman's face.  
  
The ripples in the water had long gone, having faded and returned to the water the stillness it had known before. She now had her arms encircled about her bent knees, drawn up to her chin. Her long, dark hair that fell about her face in wisps and tickled the tops of her knees was almost dry.  
  
Still, the girl-woman took no notice, drawn deeper in the tide of sentimental recollections that flooded her mind.  
  
………….  
  
  
  
'Don't look at me like that,' she whispered.  
  
'Why not?' he had replied in his now deep and husky voice, stepping in closer to her.  
  
'Because it makes me feel uncomfortable,' she countered, painfully aware of the warmth radiating from their close proximity.  
  
'Sorry, milady…'  
  
She shivered as she looked into his eyes as he watched her leave, shivered as he watched her with a low, provocative smile.  
  
Years had past since her first encounter with the sweet little boy that had once mistook her for an angel. And how the years had changed them both…  
  
The girl was becoming more of a woman these days. She was a child-queen no longer, having given up the demanding role, and become a Senator. She was wiser now, but her heart remained in an infantile stage, untouched and yet to love and be loved, put aside in the name of occupation. It was said that her girlish prettiness had in time evolved into an exquisite beauty she was famed for.  
  
During their time apart, the girl seldom thought of the boy, though the memory of the charming child still lingered somewhere in the back of her mind and her heart. And then, one day, he made a sudden return.  
  
At first she did not take notice of him, partially hidden behind his Jedi master whom she was welcoming. Then, suddenly distracted by a probing azure gaze, she felt her knees grow weak.  
  
The gaze was familiar, but then somehow unfamiliar in the sense that it sent shivers through her form that she had never once felt in her life. But then, it reminded her of somebody…some boy she had once known…  
  
All of a sudden recollection of a memory sent a faint echo that dawned realisation on her.  
  
'I won't always be…'  
  
The boy had become a young man, like he had promised to become.  
  
She gasped. Gone was the innocent charm and looks of the boy whose memory she had cherished. The young man before her…she hadn't the words to describe what she felt as she took in the sight.  
  
His small form had matured into a well-built one, towering over her lithe form. As she stared at him, she couldn't help but think of how his boyish cuteness had grown into such handsomeness. His hair was in the padawan style, short and spiky, complete with padawan ponytail and braid. His eyes, previously mischievous and innocent, had a serious glint about them and they sparkled with such compelling gravity that she found herself lost in them. And his lips, which she remembered to have pouted in childish sadness at having left his mother, were pinker and softer looking than ever. And then of course, there was that new sensation of electricity that threatened to spark to life as they stood close to one another…  
  
The girl-woman knew she shouldn't have gotten lost in the moment as days later, she and the young man stood together on the large balcony overlooking the beautifully crystalline lake of her childhood home. She had always known there was something different in how she had felt for him as a boy, and that lately it had grown admittedly into painful attraction towards him as a young man.  
  
His eyes continued to draw her to him. As they stood on the balcony, she listened, as he would tell her of how he missed his life as a slave boy for one reason only. His mother. Every once in a while, she would catch a glimpse of sadness in his eyes, sadness that stirred feelings of sympathy within her own. She yearned to be there for him as she did when he was a boy.  
  
And she yearned just to be with him. She couldn't deny it any longer.  
  
And so she acquiesced, tilting her face towards his as his lips came down softly on hers…  
  
………….  
  
  
  
Unconsciously, the girl-woman lifted a finger to her mouth, tracing it in remembrance of the time when another did the same with gentle tenderness. What had seemed like years in recollection was but an hour and only a faint line of orange lingered on the horizon.  
  
Her hand fell with an audible splash into the water.  
  
The memories playing in her mind abruptly took a violent turn. She knew she should have silenced them, but she couldn't.  
  
Once started, there was no way of stopping them…  
  
………….  
  
'You're not all powerful…' she tried to reason with him.  
  
'But I should be,' he seethed in reply.  
  
The girl-woman shuddered at the edge in his voice and the frown that twisted his mouth.  
  
What had happened to the man she had promised herself to, who promised to love her forever more in return?  
  
What happened to all the times he whispered, arms wrapped around her lovingly as they lay on their bed together, that his happiness and his goal in life was to make her happy and maybe even start a family, soon? The man before her continued to send shivers through her as he did before, although now they were now of fear instead of bliss.  
  
She had watched as he became increasingly frustrated with everything.  
  
He wasn't the same after he his mother had died in the hands of sand people. He had tried in vain to search for her when she was reported missing, fueled by his fear of losing her forever. He arrived just in time to look into her loving eyes one more time…  
  
And he watched as they took her life right before his eyes.  
  
Fear leads to hate, hate leads to anger, anger leads to the dark side…  
  
He had feared that something like that would happen when they, she and the Jedi protecting her during that mission a long time ago, had taken him away and forced him to leave his mother behind. He was afraid he wouldn't be there if something would happen to her.  
  
And now, with her recent death, he began to feel resentment towards them. The girl-woman could feel the pangs of bitterness in the way he talked and acted towards her and she didn't know what to do. Foolishly she tried to act as if there was nothing wrong. She would carry on with her loving touches and smiles, but they were only spurned roughly and met with looks of pure coldness.  
  
Even the towards the Jedi, who had provided him with a home for so many years and bestowed upon him the privilege of learning their arts, he began to feel deep hatred. She would see the tightening of his jaw and the glaze that would fall upon his eyes when he would speak to his Jedi master, thinly veiling the accusation she knew he harbored.  
  
He blamed them, and he blamed her.  
  
He blamed them all for separating him from his mother in the first place, for his not being there to stop what happened to her.  
  
He had changed, and not for the good.  
  
One night, as she unpacked her bags, as she had just returned from a business trip on a nearby planet, the girl-woman was surprised to see him standing in the doorway watching her. For once there was no angry or resentful look in his eyes, just the same tender look he had when he had first kissed her on the balcony eons ago. She felt the pain of his anger towards her slip away and felt a familiar sweet ache in her heart.  
  
They made love that night, love she hadn't felt in a long time. Her touches weren't spurned, but returned with equally loving caresses of his own as he brushed her long thick hair aside and kissed her gently on her neck like he used to.  
  
He took her high, so high, up into the night and left her breathless. There was something about the way he loved her that night that was different, in a good way.  
  
When it was over she felt a warmth growing in her belly that did not go away. It felt incredible.  
  
She cried herself to sleep afterwards, thanking the Force for giving her back the love she had lost, and he held her all night like she had held him when he had cried as a boy.  
  
In the morning he was gone.  
  
………….  
  
  
  
The girl-woman hugged her knees to her chest harder and stared at the water as she thought of the day he left her, forever it seemed. By now, four years later she had given birth their twin children, the products of their last night together, she had reached an acceptance within herself and her heart. He loved her, once, but not anymore. Though she still loved him, he did not.  
  
Otherwise he wouldn't have left.  
  
She couldn't cry.  
  
She had already cried the same volume of tears as the water that filled the bath.  
  
Smiling at the irony of the symbolism, she unfolded her legs and stretched them out before her. Slowly she leaned back and submerged herself entirely in the coldness of the water.  
  
She lay there until the end, closing her eyes and giving herself up completely to her memories.  
  
………….  
  
  
  
The figure of a lone woman lay still in the water, as if in sleep.  
  
On the far wall of the bathing chamber, a window lay wide open, admitting a cool midsummer night's zephyr. From beyond the window loomed the dark sky. And, ominously, a smooth white moon hung there, in such a position that it looked to be right at the centre of window, like it were being framed by it's panes. The sleeping chamber was awash with the soft light of this moon, giving each object a heavy shadow.  
  
Nothing, even the gentle movement of the curtains being billowed by the swirling currents of the midnight zephyr, could break the almost reverent stillness of the sight.  
  
There was no sound, save that of silence.  
  
And the silence segued for what seemed an eternity.  
  
………….  
  
[End]  
  
Author's note: Hey, thanks so much for reading 'til the end! Hope you enjoyed it…plz review ( 


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